Friday, 24 May 2013

It has been exactly 126 days since I last washed my hair with shampoo.

I started this experiment on a whim, I saw a blog post on the subject of 'no poo' and thought, that could be interesting, I'm gonna give that it a go and here I am 126 days later and I still haven't washed my hair with shampoo!

It's been quite difficult really as you have to find an alternative to shampoo that works best with you own hair type.

I started washing with an egg and lemon wash and it was working great. My hair was always lovely and soft afterwards and then about three weeks ago it all went wrong and I have no idea why? After I had used my egg and lemon wash my hair was heavy and almost waxy. It was very odd.

So I decided to start using bicarbonate of soda and apple cyder vinegar instead. That worked really well and I now use that instead.

The only problem with the cyder vinegar is that it smells, a lot! However once your hair is dry there is no smell at all, just don't get it wet again unless you are in your own shower. I took my kiddies swimming last week and forgot about the vinegar and got my hair wet, it was not good, I smelt like a mobile fish and chip van!

So aside from me going into major panic every time it rains and I have no umbrella, the new alternative to shampoo seems to be working well, for now!

Oh and I also finally caved and dyed my hair and yes it was with horrible toxin filled, really bad for you, bottled stuff. I searched for alternative dyes but there doesn't seem to be much out there (if you know of one please let me know) and a lot of products claim to be 'all natural' when in fact they are not, it's confusing!The plan was to wait until the sun came out and just put lemon on my hair to bleach it but the sun is still yet to make a proper apperance and I got fed up of waiting.I also thought that perhaps the cassia obovata that I have been using might of lightened it a bit. It didn't! So there you have it my 'no poo' experience so far.

Thursday, 7 March 2013

It has been exactly 50 days since I last washed my hair (with shampoo)! It has been a very interesting journey so far and I've had my good and bad days. The whole thing is a learning process and you have to find what works for your hair type and what definitely doesn't!

Today I'd say is a bad day.I washed my hair last night with bicarbonate of soda and conditioned it with cyder vinegarand this is what it looked like this morning...

Please excuse the serious lack of make up and ghostly pale skin, I feel rather rough today!

To me my hair looks greasy but still frizzy and just generally looks grim. I have decided that there could be three possible reasons for this...

1) I feel ill and think I have a some kind of infection as I have lost my voice so perhaps this ishaving an effect on my hair?

2) I didn't use the right amount of bicarbonate of soda when I washed it. I was running low so perhaps I didn't use enough?

3) I haven't eaten very healthy food this week. I read somewhere that what you eat has a big effect on your hair. Too much greasy food this week I think!

I feel I have kind of lost my way with this process and I'm currently not seeing a huge improvement or any particular benefits to it. Don't get me wrong I won't be going back to using shampoo, I just don't know if I'm doing the whole 'no poo' thing right!

I'm currently washing my hair once a week with either my egg wash or bicarbonate of soda and I'm definitely preferring the egg wash (it feels softer afterwards). I have about three days where I can wear my hair down and then I have to tie it up for the remaining days because it looks oily. It's hard to brush the oils through my hair because it's curly and the minute you put a brush near it, it puffs up into a mass of frizziness!

I'm not using any products at all at on it at the moment and I desperately want to dye it because the roots are looking hideous but I don't want to undo all of the hard work of not putting gunk on it! There must be an alternative, natural, solution for dying hair out there??

However I shall persevere with my 'no poo' adventure and hopefully I will see an improvement soon.

I'd love to hear from anyone else that has under gone this process and if anyone has any suggestions as to what I may be doing wrong.

Thursday, 7 February 2013

I have become obsessed with hair! I find my self staring at other peoples heads, thinking 'ooo their hair is so soft and shiny and looks so clean'. When I'm washing the kids hair in the bath I have to restrain myself from dunking my head in a swishing it around in the lovely sweet smelling strawberry stuff.

I'm now in week four of my 'no poo' adventure and I'm starting to think that I should just be like 'normal' people and wash it with shampoo.

I'm really not liking the once a week wash with just water, it just goes what I can only describe as waxy, here have a look...

I can't wear it down after a water wash, it just looks hideous!

I last washed my hair on Friday (6 days ago) with an egg and lemon wash. After this wash my hair did feel quite nice and clean but still not the same result as if I had used shampoo.

I think my main problem is that it's gone so dark, it's neither blonde nor brown at the moment, just a kinda of greyish/brown colour! I thought that the cassia obovata that I used a few weeks ago would help to lighten it a bit but it just seemed to make it a darker but richer colour.

Anyway this is what my hair is looking like today ...

Saying all that though I am starting to notice a difference this week. As I said I last washed it 6 days ago and it's only just starting to go greasy today. So that's a major improvement. I've also been able to wear my hair down all week, which I haven't done since starting my 'no poo' experiment.So maybe it's not all bad.

I have also noticed that my dandruff has pretty much gone now, which is awesome.

The next step that I plan to take is to try washing with bicarbonate of soda and condition with cyder vinegar. I'm want to try this just to see if it gives a better result than the egg and lemon wash.

I'm slightly concerned about using the bicarbonate of soda incase it dries out my scalp but we'll see I suppose.

I was suppose to take a picture of my hair after the cassia obovata wash but I forgot. I know I'm useless (can I still blame it on baby brain even though my youngest is two?!)

Anyway I used the cassia obovata on Friday and it's now Wednesday and this is what my hair is looking like now...

It's not green yey

The cassia obovata was really weird to use, it's thick like clay and you have to kind of layer it onto your head as if you are icing a cake. It also smells a little funky!

I made up my paste with the cassia obviata powder and water and then caked my head in the lot. I then covered my head with a shower cap and left it on for 1 hour.

After an hour I rinsed it off (as best I could, that stuff is stubborn) and then just left my hair to dry naturally.

Personally I thought my hair looked awful, it felt like straw and smelt odd and I wasn't sure I had used it properly. However I went out for dinner the next evening and I got a lot of compliments about my hair (Mainly that it look full of volume) and I must say that it did curl really well afterwards. So perhaps it wasn't too bad after all.

I'll be using it again in 6 weeks so just have to wait and see what happens next time.

Today, 5 days after using the cassia obovata, my hair looks very greasy but it still has lots of volume and feels a lot thicker than normal? (probably not helped by the fact that I haven't brushed it all week, I know lazy girl!) I also swear that it has changed colour a bit, it's darker but brighter if that makes sense.

I'm going to wash my hair tonight with just water (don't really want to use the egg and lemon wash as I don't know how that would react with any cassia obovata left on my head). While washing it I'll also give it a good massage to get the oils moving around and see what it looks like tomorrow.

Friday, 25 January 2013

So it has been 9 days since I last washed my hair with shampoo! (If you want to know why anyone would be mad enough to stop using shampoo then click here).

And as you can see from the photo, it's starting to look greasy and very flat. It won't curl at the moment and the roots are stuck to my head and the ends are still frizzy!! In short I look and feel rather gross. My skin has also erupted in spots (lovely) but that's not unusual for my skin so it could just be a coincidence.

Instead of shampoo so far I have used an egg and lemon mixture (which was lovely and my hair felt really soft afterwards) and just water, while massaging my head to move the oils around.

I last washed my hair with just water 3 days ago and it looks pretty greasy today.

Tonight I'm going to try my Cassia Obovata powder as we are going out for dinner tomorrow night and I really don't want to go out with a greasy mop!

I'm slightly concerned about doing this as apparently sometimes it can make your hair turn green!! Lets hope that doesn't happen.

I'll put up another post tomorrow showing you how it turned out, wish me luck.

Friday, 18 January 2013

I have decided to stop using shampoo completely. No more shampoo, no more conditioner and no more hair products. (You can read about how I got the idea here).

Yes I know, I have obviously lost a marble or two but I am going into this with an open mind. I might not stand the test of time but I'm going to give it a go. I mean how hard can it be right *said with a nervous quiver in my voice*.

I thought it would be interesting to log my process or lack of it on here. So I'll start with today.

Day one of social suicide

I last washed my hair with the 'proper' sweet smelling toxin filled bottled stuff on Wednesday morning. So by today (friday) it was starting to look a little like it could do with a scrub. (I should mention here that my hair is damaged almost beyond repair through years of abuse with dyes/hair products/straighteners etc).

I thought I would try a natural wash today and see how I got on (I can see that this is going to be a game of trial and error).

This is what I used...

3 eggs (yes you read that right eggs)

and the juice from half a lemon

Whisk it all up and it's ready to go. I wet my hair and towel dried it, I then applied the mixture to my head and really rubbed it into my scalp. Leaving the mixture on I then wrapped my head in a towel and left it for about 15 minutes or so.

When I felt that I'd had it on for long enough I then rinsed it with cool water. Apparently if you use hot water you can end up with a kind of scrambled egg type disaster (best to avoid that, not quite the look I'm going for).

and volia

(appologies in advance for the rubbish photos It's harder than it looks to take pictures of your own hair)

It worked really well and my hair felt lovely and soft. Still very frizzy but hopefully that will improve in time.

The next step now (I think) is to leave it until it starts to look like it needs a washand then wash it with just water. Next spend at least 5 minutes massaging my scalp to move the natural oils around. (I'm not feeling confident at all with this step but I'll give it a go).

The overall aim is to wash with water and massage once a week. Then use some form of natural wash (like eggs or bicarbonate of soda)once every two weeks and finally every six weeks using cassia obovata to give it a good deep cleanse and condition.